Thanks to Helen and Joriam for a really enjoyable look at how we make decisions in our teams – and the different decision-making styles available out there.

‘A terrific session that has completely resonated with me’, as one person put it.

It’s a challenging topic to talk about in most organisations as it relates to power, Helen explained.

Please fill in our feedback survey about the session if you haven’t already: https://survey.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_b7wcCHM8AbePMPA

Helen drew on Samantha Slade’s readable book ‘Going Horizontal – creating a non-hierarchical organisation, one practice at a time’.

The approaches discussed there are:
1 Autocratic
2. Majority vote
3. Advice process
4. Consent
5. Consensus.

The author herself recommends a particular consent-based decision making approach called ‘Generative Decision Making’ (which is similar to Integrative Decision Marking, PARSE: Present, Ask, React, Solve, Execute and others) – which hears from everyone, but reaches a decision without getting bogged down in consensus.

Though it was a different focus than our standard focus of practicing one (or more) Liberating Structures, the issue of how decisions are made certainly felt relevant and closely related, from the discussions had, and the chat.

Nigel shared his experience of seeing people reluctant to take decisions – and just pushing them up and up the hierarchy, despite having all the skills needed to take the decision themselves. Helen responded that that reluctance to take decisions can be a characteristic of ‘blame’ cultures.

Jo shared how Covid led to widening of permission, and reduction of bureaucracy – but it’s a challenge working with a culture leaning towards ‘Nothing can happen when the Chair’s not there’.

‘All the barriers are now slowly coming back up!’, warned Mary.

Hesham highlighted how, for the example decision he was using, he now recognised that consent would have been faster than consensus, particularly as it was relatively low stakes.

Mary asked: is there a magic ratio in high functioning teams? Do most veer towards more consent/consensus? Does it matter when these decisions are made eg stress points vs away days.

Kristin was interested to hearing of other examples of creative roles – like the story-teller on LinkedIn example that Helen gave. She sees many projects that still use traditional roles when the decisions or projects are in fact messy, complex or collaborative.

Helen talked about the need for greater clarity around whether a leader is merely taking advice, or giving decision rights.

It’s all so much clearer with a visible table of roles and accountabilities: ‘Make the decision-making landscape explicit’, as Samantha Slade puts it.

I’m not sure how fully the radicalism of ‘the advice process’ came through: in some orgs that practice the fullest form of it, anyone can take any decision – just as long as they’ve taken advice from the relevant experts and the people affected.

If anyone’s had any success in trying new decision-making styles, do share it here…

NOTE: As Joriam mentioned, we have a gap in our June 9th LS meet-up slot: is there a structure that you’d like to try your hand at facilitating? If so, please let us know.

PS Zoe wondered whether Holocracy is the same as Sociocracy. It’s not, but can anyone say more…? I know there are parallels, and Holacracy has borrowed some bits from Sociocracy, I think…